LOCK AND KEY

Trump Tries to Keep Second Set of Damning Files Secret Forever

The president filed a motion against his own Justice Department in an attempt to prevent their release.

President Donald Trump is seeking to stop his own Justice Department from releasing a whole new set of files he’d rather keep away from public view.

Trump filed a motion seeking a court order preventing the Justice Department from releasing the second volume of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s involvement in attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

The motion, which was filed in Palm Beach on Tuesday and first reported by Politico’s Kyle Cheney, reads that Trump, “respectfully moves, in his individual capacity and as a former defendant in this since-dismissed criminal action, for an order prohibiting the release of Volume II of the Final Report prepared by so-called ‘Special Counsel’ Jack Smith and his office.”

The 19-page filing also requests that the District Court of the Southern District of Florida “permanently prohibit the release of Volume II,” requesting that “the Department of Justice, as well as its current, former, and future officers, agents, officials, and employees,” should be barred “from (a) releasing, sharing, or transmitting Volume II or any drafts of Volume II outside of the Department of Justice.”

The release of the work would “lead to the public dissemination of sensitive grand jury materials, attorney-client privileged information, and other information derived from protected discovery materials, raising significant statutory, due process, and privacy concerns for President Trump and his former co-defendants,” it adds.

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The first volume of the report was filed on Jan.7, 2025, less than two weeks before Trump’s second presidential inauguration. It focused on the issue of potential election obstruction, while the second, as-yet-unreleased volume, focuses on the handling of classified government documents.

Tuesday’s motion relies on prior determinations by the court that dismissed the classified documents case against Trump. It also ruled that Smith’s appointment and funding “violated the Appointments and Appropriations Clauses of the United States Constitution,” which in turn rendered “all acts undertaken by Smith,” including the preparation of volume two, null and void.

The Department of Justice had no comment when contacted by the Daily Beast.

Smith, who resigned three days after filing his report, has maintained that he had “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election and hid classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

In a deposition released last month by the House Judiciary Committee, Smith asserted that his prosecutors “developed powerful evidence that showed that President Trump willfully retained highly classified documents after he left office” in 2021, storing them in a bathroom and ballroom at Mar-a-Lago.

“The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions,” Smith said in his deposition.

Smith’s investigation led to a grand jury indicting Trump on 37 felony counts, 31 of which fell under the Espionage Act and included charges of willful retention of national security material and obstruction of justice and conspiracy in relation to the removal of classfied documents from the White House.

Another grand jury indicted him on four counts including conspiracy to defraud the United States under Title 18 of the United States Code and obstructing an official proceeding as a result of his conduct leading up to and during the Jan. 6 Capitol Riots.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges, and trials were scheduled but never held. The classified document charges were dismissed in July 2024, and following the 2024 election, Smith announced that he was seeking to drop all charges.

Smith is set to testify on Thursday in front of the House Judiciary Committee once more about his investigation into Trump.

A lawyer for Smith said in a statement shared by PBS earlier this month, “Jack has been clear for months he is ready and willing to answer questions in a public hearing about his investigations into President Trump’s alleged unlawful efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents.”

The president’s attempt to prevent the release of the second volume of the report comes as he faces increasing pressure for failing to release the majority of the files connected to the case of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

In court filings submitted earlier this month, the DOJ admitted that more than 2 million documents remain in “various phases of review,” while just 12,285 documents have been released so far.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act required that all of the department’s investigative files relating to the case be released by Dec. 19, 2025.

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Catherine BourisReporter

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